FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT TECHNICIANS - PAGE 2

Delray Beach crime-scene technician Don Frank recently arrived at a house he was to dust for fingerprints when he noticed something unusual. "I saw this guy walking down the street with a TV on his shoulder. He wasn`t just strolling. He was hustling along, short of a run," Frank said. A woman on the street saw the man too. "That`s my television," she told Frank, a Police Department civilian employee. Frank called in the incident, officers were sent to the scene and the man was arrested and charged with burglary.

The mysterious mine that floated from Dania Beach to Hollywood, closing beaches and launching evacuations on Thursday, was a dud, according to Navy experts. It was towed to the U.S. Coast Guard Station, Fort Lauderdale, according to Hollywood Police. A passing boater first spotted the cylindrical object about a mile off Dania Beach around 2 p.m. prompting the U.S. Coast Guard to close the beach and surrounding waters. By nightfall, the mine had floated south into Hollywood's waters about 1,200 yards offshore.

When U.S. Army veteran Juan Rivera turned 55 and decided it was time for a colonoscopy, he turned to the Veterans Administration hospital in Miami. He had the test, got a clean bill of health and didn't give it another thought. A year later, he received a chilling letter from the VA. It said the equipment used in the procedure might have been contaminated. And it asked him to come in for viral testing. He came up HIV positive. "He's shocked and mortified. He feels the government has given him a death sentence," said lawyer Ira Leesfield, who has filed suit against the VA for $20 million on Rivera's behalf.

An electrical problem knocked out the power at the 40th Street Bridge for nearly five hours Sunday, keeping the eastern span from closing until technicians made repairs, police said. State Department of Transportation technicians were able to correct the problem and get the bridge working again by 5:30 p.m., when police stopped re- routing traffic in the area. The bridge malfunctioned at 12:50 p.m., causing a major traffic tie-up at the bridge. The eastern span would not lock in place, said the bridge tender and police.

Broward County may save more than $100,000 because of a state Supreme Court ruling on Thursday that limits the amount of interest the county must pay to emergency medical technicians in a 10-year-old dispute about overtime pay. The county`s emergency medical technicians filed a class-action lawsuit in 1980, claiming they should be paid time-and-a-half for working more than 40 hours a week. Technicians averaged 56-hour weeks by working a one-day-on, two- days-off schedule. Lower courts ruled in the technicians` favor, entitling them to $740,151 in back pay, plus interest and attorneys fees, for the period from 1978 to 1980.

CarMax, the used-car retailer, said Wednesday it plans to hire 35 workers in South Florida and a total of 1,200 for its stores across the nation. The hiring will be both for seasonal staffing and announced expansion plans. Jobs are available in sales and service operations (detailers, experienced technicians), with additional positions available in purchasing and the business office. Full and part-time permanent positions are available, as well as evening shifts in some markets. Technicians require previous automotive experience, but most other positions do not, the company said.

Two musicians and two sound technicians from a popular Cuban band on a U.S. tour said on Tuesday they have defected to seek political asylum. The members of Carlos Manuel and his Clan said they decided to defect on Saturday after their performances at a Miami Beach nightclub. Late Tuesday, they had not formally requested asylum, said Omar Lopez, a spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation. Cubans who reach U.S. soil are generally allowed to stay and can eventually obtain permanent U.S. residency.

LAKE WORTH -- Police blocked off a two-block area on North Dixie Highway for about two hours on Wednesday while Palm Beach County sheriff`s bomb technicians defused a World War II artillery shell. Jerry Cardarelli, 46, bought the war relic at a Lantana thrift shop on Sunday. But on Wednesday, he called police and said he had second thoughts about whether the 155mm shell was safe, police said. About 4 p.m., police blocked off North Dixie Highway between 15th Avenue North and 17th Avenue North while the technicians defused the 2-foot-long shell.

The southbound entrance ramp and northbound exit ramp at Sample Road in Pompano Beach on Florida's Turnpike will be closed overnight tonight while technicians install new vehicle-counting equipment in the roadway. The ramps will be closed from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Thursday. An alternate route is the Coconut Creek Parkway/Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard interchange (exit 67) to the south.

It would be a gift worthy of the tooth fairy: quality dentures at half the cost. Denture technicians say they can do it, if state legislators this year break the monopoly that dentists hold over providing dentures to Floridians. On Thursday, bills were filed in both the House and Senate that would allow denture technicians to have direct access to patients. The issue will provoke quite a professional fight. A similar proposal failed in 1980. In Oregon - one of seven states where patients can go directly to a lab for dentures - a study showed the average cost of a set was $585, advocates said on Thursday.